IN the aftermath of the 2011 Tahrir Square protests, and again after last month’s coup by the Egyptian army, many pointed out that Egypt should learn from Pakistan. Our country’s history teaches that armies cannot ‘restore democracy’, particularly those armies that have a history of subverting civilian governments to protect their economic interests.

Last week, in one of the most excessive displays of state violence, Muslim Brotherhood protest camps were brutally cleared, leaving hundreds dead. The crackdown followed a summer of killings of members of the Muslim Brotherhood (no doubt, Mohamed Morsi’s supporters also engaged in violence, including targeting churches, but little justifies the Egyptian state’s actions). As Egyptians brace for civil war, it seems Egypt also has lessons to offer to Pakistan.

Egypt’s army justified last week’s massacre by denouncing Muslim Brotherhood supporters as terrorists; a spokesman from the defence ministry argued that civil liberties and human rights become irrelevant when tackling terrorism. Analysts are predicting a long campaign to suppress or eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood, more severe than anything that unfolded under Hosni Mubarak.

More worryingly, Egypt’s liberals and intellectual elite have not condemned the excessive violence. The National Salvation Front, a coalition of liberal political parties, rejects the idea that last week’s crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins was a ‘massacre’, arguing that protesters could have voluntarily dispersed. The country’s media is cheering the army on. Ordinary Egyptian liberals have either fallen silent or vehemently support army action.

This is what happens when a society becomes too polarised; when black and white face off, leaving little room for the nuance, facts, and dialogue that shades of grey demand.

It is particularly ironic when this happens in countries that have endured years of autocratic military rule, where biased and blunt propaganda has defined public discourse for so long that any too-emphatic claim must be viewed with scepticism.

But it seems that rather than engage with each other, groups tend to adopt the same techniques that they have seen others in power use to great effect. Sadly, the end result is only more polarisation: the Muslim Brotherhood is now calling for mutiny, and increased radicalisation seems inevitable.

The unfolding horrors in Egypt hold lessons for Pakistan, particularly as our country seems finally to be on the brink of a serious conversation about countering terrorism. We too are a deeply polarised society, and that polarisation is manifest in differing attitudes towards the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), its affiliate groups, and the best way to tackle the threat they pose. Tribal peoples or terrorists? Talks or military action? Integration or elimination? As in Egypt, we have long embraced an either/or mentality.

Pakistanis (including myself) who support state action against the TTP and its affiliates do so because these groups have repeatedly and explicitly rejected government writ, refused to recognise the Constitution, and have done so through the most brutal and relentless violence, leaving over 50,000 Pakistanis dead.

But in asking for the use of military force, Pakistanis cannot fall prey to the simplicity of either/or. If it were to come to a situation where the military committed to sustained and widespread action with the goal of dismantling the TTP and other militant groups, Pakistan must not become Egypt, where anyone with an opposing view is a terrorist, and so worthy of elimination. This would be all too likely in Pakistan’s case, where everyone feels entitled to taking the law into his own hands, and people already die on a daily basis because of their sect, political affiliation, or demand for provincial autonomy.

In implementing a counterterrorism strategy, language will be of utmost importance. Egypt’s troubles are perpetuated by the fact that anyone with ties to or empathy for the Muslim Brotherhood is being labelled a terrorist or a traitor, no matter if they are women, children, journalists, or human rights defenders.

This is why in the course of its own fight against terror Pakistan must clarify who counts as a terrorist, since clear definitions will be key to ensuring that needless bloodbaths do not ensue, only to stir decades more of resentment, radicalisation, and further social polarisation.

Are militants combatants who can be killed, and if so, under what circumstances? What criteria will determine which militants are selected for reintegration? How will security forces ensure transparency regarding the identities of slain militants and the circumstances under which they died?

These are difficult questions to answer. This is why the national counterterrorism strategy must place much greater emphasis on reforming the criminal justice system and anti-terror courts. After all, these murky, moral issues are best handled in courts of law, not in the heat of battle.

By extension that means that any military action must seek to apprehend as many militants as possible, and prosecute them under the law. A fight to uphold the sanctity of the state and Constitution cannot be fought at the expense of the Constitution’s basic principles; even ‘terrorists‘ are humans whose basic rights must be guaranteed as far as possible.

To realise this ideal scenario, Pakistan will have to discard its muddled notions of ‘good Taliban’ and ‘bad Taliban’, ‘our Taliban’ and ‘their Taliban’.

The only way for a national counterterrorism strategy to be effective — without providing cover for endless persecution and human rights violations, and the retaliation those will provoke — is if it is predicated on a blanket ban on all kinds of militancy and extremism. Groups supposedly loyal to Pakistan must find politically and legally acceptable ways to champion their causes. And those that are left fighting should know military action awaits. Without this, Pakistan and Egypt’s fates might be linked after all.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com